Tag Archives: clarity

Here’s another installment in a series of emails that took place between Michael and one of his senior students beginning the Summer of 2009. May you find the exchange interesting and enriching. ___ August 14, 2010 (#26) Student: Is there a perfect time to break from the sweetness of teacher? Won’t this be known and happen naturally, [...]

Here’s another installment in a series of emails that took place between Michael and one of his senior students beginning the Summer of 2009. May you find the exchange interesting and enriching. ____ August 10, 2010 Student: Your words during last night’s Dharma talk invited understanding but not with the mind, and I know this because I [...]

Here’s another installment in a series of emails that took place between Michael and one of his senior students beginning in August of 2009. May you find the exchange interesting and enriching. ____ July 25th, 2010 Student: Why does it seem as if I phase in and out of clarity? I mean I’m getting increasingly clear about [...]

Michael begins this talk with the following quotation from Rilke’s Duino Elegies: For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror which we are barely able to endure, and it amazes us so, because it serenely disdains to destroy us. This sets up his talk by making the point that it’s in our desire to [...]

Consciously meeting the grace brought on by deep meditative work allows for us to develop a steadiness in our day-to-day lives. This doesn’t mean that we won’t experience discomfort and pain. In fact, when we let both our physical and emotional discomfort inform our lives, instead of defining them, we can begin to fearlessly welcome [...]

“Whenever you feel a judgment arise in your awareness, you are feeling the ego’s energetic pull,” the Zen teacher said to a group of us in the meditation hall. It was late in the afternoon and I was tired, worried that I might fall asleep during this lady’s talk. I wasn’t bored with what she [...]